Survival Training is not a Euphemism
by lynne-monstr
Summary: Hardison dragged along every computer known to man and Parker's in a turf war with the local wildlife. This isn't what Eliot meant when he said they should do some wilderness survival training. Eliot/Parker/Hardison.


Written for comment_fic at LJ for the prompt: _Parker/Hardison/Eliot, Eliot wants to give them a wilderness survival course but Hardison just brings his video games and Parker gets into a territory war with a bunch of squirrels/beavers/geese/whatever_

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><p>Their campsite looked like a bomb had hit it. That is, a bomb whose payload was more computer equipment than any one person rightfully ought to have in their possession. Eliot's eyes took it all in— the tablet computer stacked on a laptop next to some handheld device that he swore better not be a damn video game. And that didn't even take into account the random wires and other crap that Eliot didn't even want to try and identify. Next to his own solitary drab-brown backpack, it looked even more ridiculous.<p>

"I said necessities only."

Hardison looked up from where he was typing one-handed, the other toying with a dead leaf. "Hey man, you said travel light. This is me traveling light. "

"This nerd-fest thing you got going on is a lot of things. Light ain't one of 'em. What part of necessities did you not get?"

"Quad core processing _is_ a necessity. Are you seriously telling me you've never brought along the backup to your backup gaming laptop?"

Eliot clenched his teeth. When he proposed this weekend of wilderness training, he hadn't expected it to be all smooth sailing. But he didn't expect it to be this difficult, either. What was so hard about stepping away from the computer and getting a little fresh air?

Light from between the trees glinted off a matte black piece of equipment nearby. Eliot went with the distraction and picked the thing up, turning it over and eyeing it like it might bite. Or blow up. He was pretty sure Hardison was capable of anything when it came to computer tech, and he wasn't taking any chances. "I don't even know what this is."

"Portable power charger." Hardison's eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store and Eliot steeled himself for the incomprehensible babble sure to follow. "See, I listened. 'Cause what's more of an emergency than running out of power, right? So this baby here, it stores kinetic energy from hiking and converts it to—"

A loud pop came from the thing followed by the hiss of escaping smoke, and only a lifetime of having guns shoved in his face kept Eliot from jumping.

Hardison gave a sheepish grin. "It's still in beta."

Eliot thrust the device back at Hardison with a growl. Longingly, he thought of his travel-sized French press that he deliberately didn't bring, because fancy coffee had no place in survival training. Part of him was kicking himself for not taking it along; the other part was equally disgusted that he would even consider such a thing.

"I hate you."

"Aw, come on. We all know that's Eliot-speak for–"

"Did you know that squirrels can fall up to 100 feet without hurting themselves?"

Eliot twitched and looked up, suppressing a bark of laughter as Hardison made a high pitched noise and tripped over his own feet. Above their heads, Parker was swinging upside down by a tree branch, her hair hanging loose and obscuring her face. How the hell she got up there was anyone's guess. The trunk was decent enough for climbing but there were no low hanging branches to grab hold of and haul yourself up. But it was Parker, so he knew better than to ask.

Before either of them could answer, a brown blur came hurling towards them from above. A squirrel, some distant part of his brain informed him. It was a mark of what his life had become that he didn't even consider projectile rodents to be the strangest thing he'd seen lately. The blur hit the ground and froze long enough for Eliot to confirm that he was correct before darting away in a panicked flurry into a tree. A different tree, he noticed. Not Parker's.

Hardison covered his head with both hands, hunched in a protective crouch over his little village of computer stuff. "Jesus, woman, no dive-bombing! Ceasefire, ceasefire!"

"Leave and don't come back! This tree is my tree," Parker yelled. Her face wasn't visible past the curtain of her hair, but Eliot could imagine the intense pout as clearly as if she was standing right in front of him.

Hardison peeked out from behind his hands and carefully got to his feet. "I don't want your damn tree."

Laughter rang out from above them. "Not you, silly." A swing and a flip, and Parker landed catlike at their feet, a grin stretching across her face as she swung an arm around each of their shoulders.

"The squirrels," she confided in a whisper. "They keep looking at me funny. I don't like it."

"The squirrels aren't the weird ones, here," Eliot mumbled under his breath, but let himself be led to the empty fire pit that they still needed to get finished before sundown.

Hardison followed his gaze and grinned, "Don't worry, man. I can think of a much better way to keep warm than that."

"He means sex," Parker added.

Eliot laughed and bumped his hip against Parker's as they walked. "Yeah, darling, I got that."

They might not get much survival training done, but that didn't mean the trip would be a total loss.


End file.
